Pacer Advisors Inc. Trims Stock Position in Salesforce Inc. $CRM

Key Points

• Pacer Advisors Inc. reduced its Salesforce stake by 8.2% in the fourth quarter, selling 134,086 shares and leaving it with 1.51 million shares worth about $398.7 million.
• Despite some mixed analyst sentiment, Salesforce still carries an overall Moderate Buy rating, though several firms recently trimmed price targets and some remain cautious on AI monetization and growth reacceleration.
• Salesforce reported better-than-expected quarterly results, with EPS of $3.88 and revenue of $11.13 billion, and it also announced a $25 billion share repurchase program along with a quarterly dividend.

Pacer Advisors Inc. cut its holdings in shares of Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM - Free Report) by 8.2% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 1,505,213 shares of the CRM provider's stock after selling 134,086 shares during the period. Pacer Advisors Inc. owned about 0.16% of Salesforce worth $398,746,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in CRM. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd raised its position in Salesforce by 3.7% during the fourth quarter. Temasek Holdings Private Ltd now owns 683,790 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $181,143,000 after acquiring an additional 24,332 shares in the last quarter. SFE Investment Counsel boosted its position in Salesforce by 82.7% in the 4th quarter. SFE Investment Counsel now owns 17,394 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $4,608,000 after purchasing an additional 7,871 shares in the last quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp grew its stake in shares of Salesforce by 8.9% during the 3rd quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 1,299,513 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $307,984,000 after purchasing an additional 106,107 shares during the period. Fisher Asset Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Salesforce by 2.4% during the 3rd quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 4,328,230 shares of the CRM provider's stock worth $1,025,791,000 after purchasing an additional 101,191 shares during the period. Finally, Eminence Capital LP increased its holdings in shares of Salesforce by 5.6% during the 3rd quarter. Eminence Capital LP now owns 830,536 shares of the CRM provider's stock valued at $196,837,000 after purchasing an additional 43,888 shares in the last quarter. 80.43% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Mizuho decreased their target price on shares of Salesforce from $280.00 to $265.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 26th. Wells Fargo & Company cut their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $210.00 to $200.00 and set an "equal weight" rating for the company in a report on Thursday, May 28th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price objective on shares of Salesforce from $365.00 to $320.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. Wedbush reissued an "outperform" rating and set a $325.00 target price on shares of Salesforce in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group assumed coverage on Salesforce in a research report on Thursday. They set a "neutral" rating on the stock. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-six have given a Buy rating, twelve have assigned a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Salesforce presently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $257.61.

Key Stories Impacting Salesforce

Here are the key news stories impacting Salesforce this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Monness Crespi & Hardt upgraded Salesforce to buy from neutral and set a $200 price target, citing valuation appeal and potential AI-driven upside. Read More
• Positive Sentiment: Truist reiterated confidence in Salesforce after its $3.6 billion Fin acquisition, viewing the deal as another step in expanding its AI automation and customer-agent capabilities. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Multiple articles highlighted Salesforce as a long-term growth stock, with analysts pointing to its AI platform, Agentforce, and ongoing product expansion as reasons for optimism. Article Title
• Neutral Sentiment: Salesforce’s latest AI and acquisition story continues to attract attention, including coverage of the Fin deal and a new partnership announcement, which could support the long-term growth narrative if execution remains strong. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Other commentary remained cautious, with UBS keeping a neutral rating and some analysts cutting fair value estimates amid questions about AI monetization, unit economics, and growth reacceleration. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: A comparison piece against Oracle underscored that Salesforce’s recent earnings and outlook have not been viewed as strongly as some peers, reinforcing investor concern about near-term performance versus other software names. Article Title

Salesforce Stock Down 2.2%

CRM opened at $151.67 on Friday. Salesforce Inc. has a twelve month low of $149.80 and a twelve month high of $276.80. The company has a quick ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $177.91 and a 200 day moving average price of $204.72. The company has a market cap of $124.22 billion, a PE ratio of 17.55, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.97 and a beta of 1.16.

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 27th. The CRM provider reported $3.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.13 by $0.75. Salesforce had a return on equity of 18.72% and a net margin of 18.73%.The company had revenue of $11.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $11.05 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.58 EPS. Salesforce's revenue was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Salesforce has set its FY 2027 guidance at 14.060-14.120 EPS and its Q2 2027 guidance at 3.250-3.270 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that Salesforce Inc. will post 10.29 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Salesforce announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock repurchase program on Monday, March 16th that allows the company to buyback $25.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the CRM provider to reacquire up to 14.1% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are generally an indication that the company's leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Salesforce Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, July 2nd. Investors of record on Thursday, June 11th will be given a dividend of $0.44 per share. This represents a $1.76 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.2%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, June 11th. Salesforce's payout ratio is presently 20.37%.

About Salesforce

Salesforce, founded in 1999 and headquartered in San Francisco, is a global provider of cloud-based software focused on customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise applications. The company popularized the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model for CRM and has built a broad portfolio of products designed to help organizations manage sales, service, marketing, commerce and analytics through a unified, cloud-first platform.

Core offerings include Sales Cloud for sales automation, Service Cloud for customer support, Marketing Cloud for digital marketing and engagement, and Commerce Cloud for e-commerce.

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